WCW: Emily Dickinson

American poet Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, so this seems like a good time to give her a WCW feature! Only 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems were published before her death on May 15, 1886, but Dickinson’s work became famous and beloved in the years since. She lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, and has been painted as reclusive, although she maintained an active correspondence and social life with her close family, including her nieces and nephews. Her dog Carlo was a constant companion, and Emily was also an avid gardener, growing many types of flowers that she would gift to friends. She did experience poor health off and on, which limited her activity outside the family home. Emily Dickinson wrote hundreds of very intimate letters to her brother’s wife, Susan Gilbert Dickinson, and recent scholars suggest Emily and Susan had a homoerotic relationship.

There’s only one contemporary image that’s been verified as Emily Dickinson, this daguerrotype of her as a girl:

1846 or 1847 daguerrotype of Emily Dickinson, via Wikimedia Commons. — 1846-47 daguerrotype of Emily Dickinson, via Wikimedia Commons.

Before listing her appearances onscreen, let me share my favorite Emily Dickinson poem, number 372:

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –